HP Probook not booting due to WLAN card

[phly]

Good Day

I was handed a laptop by a friend to try and sort it out for them. I like tinkering with things so i was up for the challenge. Its an HP Probook 4515s. The issue is the moment you switch it on, it shows a message stating "104-Unsupported wireless network device detected. System halted. Remove device and restart". And refuses to boot any further.

I tried all tricks in the book but no luck I just couldn't pass that screen. All I could do was restart and none of the options listed worked. I tried removing the wifi card and that worked. Laptop boots fine into windows. The laptop hadn't been opened before so the WIFI card had never been changed so why would the laptop behave as if this is an after market 3rd party WLAN card whereas its the original one that came with the laptop and has been working fine until one day it just started with the above mentioned error.

Any way to get the laptop to continue using this WLAN card. I have read that some HP laptops had a security mechanism whereby they would "reject" 3rd party WLAN cards however this is the original card that shipped with the laptop. Before trying to get an alternative card how can I have the laptop "accept" and continue using the current Atheros AR5B95-H card?

 

[sajunky]

I suspect that card is faulty and do not respond to ID requests properly. BIOS which has a whitelist of supported cards do not even try to initialize such card.

If you want to use 3rd party card, search for "whitelist removal" for this laptop. It is dangerous as you can permanently brick laptop if you don't do it properly. Or get some malware on the occasion. It is easier to find compatible card on second hand market.

 

[airborne]

If its the original card then its probably faulty, you can order most original HP laptop Wlan cards on eBay for peanuts.

 

[phly]

Thanks for the input. Will go on a hunt for a card and even test it at the shop before buying it. I should be able to find a compatible card around. I did get to read about Bios and bios modding and got to learn some new things in the process however it is a very detailed process that I will only undertake as a last resort as its easy to brick the laptop too. Can always count on the advice here. Thanks @sajunky and @airborne.